A professor at the University of Wisconsin is facing threats of criminal action for putting up a poster featuring a quote from the sci-fi television series Firefly.

The quote in question is:

You don't know me, son, so let me explain this to you once: if I ever kill you, you'll be awake. You'll be facing me. And you'll be armed.

It seems obvious to me, as I think it would be to most people, that the quote illustrates a particular contextualization (the wild west in space) of the general moral stance that one should be fair in one's disagreements, no matter how high the stakes are.

It's a university, so obviously they have some discretion in how the professors present themselves. A sign with a black man hanging from a tree that said, "I enjoy lynching," for example, would, I think, be reasonable grounds for firing someone. If there was a case to be made for its representing some less controversial philosophical position, it would at least still be reasonable to have it removed, and give the professor in question a stern talking-to about his sense of judgment.

Maybe it's just because I already knew the context, but I think the case for the Firefly poster is much stronger than that. The case for the subsequent poster even more so.